Consuming more fibre may reduce a person's risk of developing heart disease, a new study has found.

Almost half of all deaths in the US and at least one in three deaths in Europe are due to heart disease. UK researchers decided to take a closer look at the role fibre plays in reducing this risk.

They analysed published studies carried out since 1990 in the US, Europe, Australia and Japan, which looked at fibre intake and heart disease.

Fibre is found in foods such as whole grains, cereal, fruit, vegetables, legumes and oats.

The study found that the more fibre a person consumed, the less likely they were to suffer a heart disease-related event. In fact, for every additional 7g of fibre eaten each day, the risk fell significantly. This amount of fibre is found in one portion of whole grains, e.g. whole grain bread or pasta, a portion of lentils, a portion of beans or in two to four servings of fruit and vegetables.

The researchers from the University of Leeds said that these findings could ‘potentially impact on many thousands of individuals'.

"Diets high in fibre, specifically from cereal or vegetable sources...are significantly associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease and reflect recommendations to increase intake," they concluded.

Details of these findings are published in the British Medical Journal. In an accompanying editorial, Dr Robert Baron of the University of California acknowledged that teaching patients to eat whole grains ‘is still challenging'. He said people should be encouraged to gradually increase their intake of fibre and drink plenty of water.

He added that the recommendation to consume more fibre ‘may turn out to be the most important nutrition recommendation of them all'.

For more information on heart disease, see our Heart Disease Clinic here